


Forgotten

by ReptileRuler



Series: PRaZ FebuWhump [21]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: (when its cartoony and fun and not horror-violence), Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:14:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29678943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReptileRuler/pseuds/ReptileRuler
Summary: They didn't think he'd ever do it, but despite everything, the Tallest stand in pleasant surprise, waiting to accept Zim after his success on planet Earth.Too bad he seems to have forgotten everything that's happened in the past several years.Febuwhump 2021 DAY 24: memory loss
Series: PRaZ FebuWhump [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137614
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	Forgotten

**Author's Note:**

> ADMITTEDLY NOT WHUMP. Because Zim continues to be an idiot gahhh
> 
> But... if it were a multi-chaptered story, there would be whump potential. So I leave this here for you to daydream about.

The Massive arrived to planet Earth in the evening, local time at Invader Zim’s base. The planet greeted them with a huge holographic Irken logo, and the surface below the logo was gray and lifeless, ripe to become anything the Tallest desired. Red considered the giant snack bowl option. A classic, yes, but oh so much fun. 

Zim hadn’t been answering their calls since they'd heard of his success, but they didn’t worry about that. Now that they were here, they could just grab his PAK signal and beam him up, so once they were ready, they did. They waited in the teleportation room, while their guards stood on the other side of the door. The first meeting with Zim would be private, an honor deserved only for the best Irken soldiers.

A flash of light, and their littlest Invader stood in the middle of the floor, blinking. Red grinned and opened his arms in a gesture.

“Zim! Congratulations on your successful mission!” he exclaimed.

“We didn’t think you’d do it!” Purple said.

“No. We really didn’t”, Red agreed.

Zim blinked at them, seemingly lost in thought.

“Zim?” Red faltered slightly. Then, he felt annoyance surge up. They'd gone all this way to congratulate the roach, and got nothing but the silent treatment for it?

Zim tilted his head and gave them a look, one eyed scrunched up and one wide open.

“Tallest?” he said. 

“Um, yes?” Purple said, “it’s us. What’s up with you?”

For a moment there was silence. Then, Zim jumped up on his PAK legs and screamed.

“Impostors! Impostor Tallests!  _ What have you done to Tallest Miyuki!” _

They didn’t have time to answer (whatever that even  _ meant) _ , suddenly busy avoiding the lasers coming from the tips of Zim’s legs. Red opened the door behind them, and they flew out, startling the guards.

“Close the door! Close the door!” Red yelled, while trying to get away.

A few laser shots made their way through the opening, but it snapped closed before Zim could make his way through.

“Hey! HEY!” Zim’s fists banging on the door echoed through the corridor. “Let me out! You think you can fool ZIM with your tallness and your robes!? I’m not falling for it! You will tell me where Tallest Miyuki is and then I will blow your heads off!”

The guards and the pair of Tallest all stared in stunned silence. It didn’t make any sense. 

Had Zim gone completely insane after succeeding in his mission?

“Sirs?” the tallest guard said hesitantly. It snapped Red out of his racing thoughts. “Should we… send him back to the planet’s surface?”

“...” They  _ could.  _ Leave Zim to be crazy on the barren wasteland of the earth. Turn around and keep living their best lives on the Massive and not have to worry about Zim ever again. But something churned in his spooch at the idea.

“Man. We finally acknowledge him and he goes and, like, forgets us?” Purple huffed, mirroring Red’s own feelings. 

Meanwhile, the banging had stopped. Red heard something that sounded kind of like a laser cutting through metal. Zim was trying to escape.

“Zim, can you hear me?” he called. The laser cutting noise stopped.

“What have you done to my Tallest?” Zim yelled back. Everyone shared an uneasy glance.

“Can you state your name and assigned position for me?”

“I AM ZIM! Military researcher on research facility number ten-seven-seven-A on planet Vort”, he spoke automatically, then,”-WAIT DO NOT QUESTION ME!  _ You’re _ the enemy here!!”

Had Zim… forgotten everything after his time in military research? How did this happen??

“... Do you know where you are right now?” Red tried.

“I AM- uh…”

Silence. Red imagined Zim looking around the teleportation room, trying to figure it out. 

“How did I get here?” that was mumbled to himself, almost too quiet for Red to hear through the door.

“... If you promise not to attack, we will open the door, and we’ll explain everything to you. Okay?”

Reasoning with Zim usually didn’t work. He was a narcissistic, idioting little bug who never listened to anyone. That was the problem they'd always been faced with. But, after a few infuriating rounds of bargaining, Zim promised not to immediately attack (with the threat of half a dozen armed guards ready to shoot at him if he even tried). 

The doors opened slowly, weapons trained on the spot where they expected Zim to be.

Dark thoughts swirled around in Red’s brain in the limbo of time between watching the door opening and Zim walking out, unarmed. What had happened? How could they get Zim’s memories back?

…  _ Should  _ they try to get Zim’s memories back?

He didn’t remember killing Miyuki. He didn’t remember Spork, or Operation Impending Doom one and two. He didn’t even remember being an invader.

And he didn’t remember being exiled. 

Two things could happen. Zim could make the same mistakes again, causing widespread destruction and suffering for all of Irkenkind, and most likely killing him and Purple. Or… or he wouldn’t.

Maybe he’d just be a happier little Irken, unaware of the pain he’d caused. 

Red mulled it over, the risks, the rewards, of either possibility, as he waited. 


End file.
